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12/28/2012 12:40 PM

Promised Land Opens in Theatres

SustainableBusiness.com News

Promised Land, Matt Damon's film about the impact of natural gas fracking on small-town America, opens in theatres today.

Although the natural gas industry is ready to fight back through various means, the movie isn't an environmental scare flick and doesn't even take a strong anti-fracking stance, says DeSmog blog, which viewed it before the release.

"Instead, the movie takes a close look at the economic realities that drive people to lease their land, the dying prospects for family farms and remains vague about fracking's environmental impacts," says DeSmog.

Here's what Robert Kennedy Jr. says about Promised Land:

A December 2012 Siena College poll shows that upstate New Yorkers oppose fracking by an astounding margin of 45-39. Those numbers surprise New York politicians who can generally count on the support of upstaters for virtually any industrial or commercial enterprise that promises even the faintest chance of economic development for New York's impoverished rural communities.

Matt Damon and John Krasinski's new film Promised Land answers the question of why even the poorest rural communities are standing up against fracking. Damon and Krasinki both co-wrote and star in the film.

Everyone knows that fracking poisons the air and water. We wanted to show how it tears apart local communities and subverts democracies and corrupts political leaders and eviscerates all the things that Americans value.

The film, which ends with a surprise twist, does all these things. It also serves as a primer for communities that are seduced by the whiff of big money and the lies of a smooth-talking landman. Damon plays a particularly convincingly landman, the gas industry's front line magician whose job it is to deceive rural landowners into signing away their mineral rights for a song filled with empty promises.

The Community Fracking Defense Project stands ready to help towns and municipalities develop legal protections against fracking, initially launching in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and North Carolina.